WASHINGTON -- Nearly half of African-Americans born to middle-class families are now among the nation's poorest earners, a new Pew Charitable Trusts study said.

Meanwhile, 16 percent of white adults born to middle-class parents in the late 1960s experienced similar downward economic mobility to the lowest one-fifth of earners, The Washington Post said.

Analysts said the study underscores the economic fragility faced by African-Americans. The study showed that 45 percent of black children born in middle-class families, with median incomes of $55,600 in today's dollars, now earn a median $23,100 in their 30s and 40s.

Pew's Panel Study of Income Dynamics has followed the economic status of 2,367 Americans since 1968, including 730 African-Americans.